The Ministry of Justice in England and Wales last week repealed and removed from the statute book the offence of “being an incorrigible rogue”.
The Vagrancy Act of 1824 which introduced the offence aimed to punish “idle and disorderly persons and rogues and vagabonds”.
It was brought in to deal with problems in England following the Napoleonic Wars as large numbers of soldiers were discharged on to the streets with no job and no accommodation.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines an “incorrigible” person as someone “not able to be changed or reformed”.
Source: The Independent, 12 December 2013.